1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for controlling and/or regulating an annealing or heat treatment furnace of a production line processing metal material, which comprises the annealing or heat treatment furnace and at least one measuring instrument, which detects at least one material property of a strap material located in the production line, wherein the annealing or heat treatment furnace and the at least one measuring instrument interact in a regulating and/or control circuit of an automated process control, which regulates and/or controls the annealing or heat treatment furnace in connection with a furnace control.
The invention further relates to a method for controlling and/or regulating an annealing or heat treatment furnace of a production line processing metal material comprising the annealing or heat treatment furnace, preferentially at least one rolling and/or stretching station arranged behind the former in the strap material processing direction, as well as at least one measuring instrument which detects at least one material property of a strap material located in the production line, wherein the annealing or heat treatment furnace, preferentially the at least one rolling and/or stretching station arranged behind the former in the strap material processing direction, and the at least one measuring instrument interact in a regulating and/or control circuit of an automated process control, with which the annealing or heat treatment furnace is controlled and/or regulated in connection with a furnace control.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the framework of processing strap materials made out of a ferrous material or a non-ferrous metal, it is common that, for instance before performing one or multiple rolling step(s), the strap material is heated for it to be more processable in the subsequent deep-drawing process. For instance, in an annealing treatment, strap materials are fed into an annealing furnace and exposed to a temperature of 700 to 900° C. in order to pre-process straps that might, for example, have previously been cold-rolled, so as to make them more processable in the subsequent deep-drawing process and possibly in a coating process.
Due to the ever increasing requirements of the industry from its suppliers, and of the automotive industry in particular, it is increasingly important to generate and document material with homogeneous properties within narrow tolerance ranges. In order to realize this, an automated process control is an imperative condition.
Such a device and such a method for controlling a process line are known from U.S. 2010/0219567 A1 and from EP 2 557 183 A1. The process line known from these are a CAL (Continuous Annealing Line) or a CGL (Continuous Galvanized Line) process line. It is also already provided there that the respective annealing furnace is controlled by means of a measuring instrument which detects a measured value reproducing and/or depicting mechanical material properties of the strap material. However, it is provided there that the furnace parameters are regulated directly.
A disadvantageous aspect of this prior art is that the annealing furnace is thermally inert, and that the conditions in the furnace do not change rapidly. A standard regulation concept is therefore unsuccessful.
The object of the present invention is to provide improved, in comparison with known prior art, device and method for controlling and/or regulating an annealing or heat treatment furnace of a production line for processing metal material.